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Review - Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (GameCube)

Overview

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Review

Release Date: 10.17.2005
Platform: GameCube
Developer: Intelligent Systems
Publisher: Nintendo of America, Inc.

Reviewed by Richard Brownell on 11.29.2008
Review Rating: 8/10 User Rating: 9.05/10
After the success of the first American release of Fire Emblem on the GBA and popularity of the Fire Emblem characters in the Super Smash Bros. series, it seemed we would likely get all future Fire Emblem releases. We had to wait a couple years but Nintendo of America came through in 2005 with the release of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones on GBA and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance on GameCube.

As with previous games, Path of Radiance follows all of the rules established in Fire Emblem games. It's a strategy RPG divided into dozens of levels, each with a traditional square grid. Each character has a class such as ranger or sword knight which dictates what weapons they can use and their advancement. There are weapon and magic triangles, which says that sword beats axe, axe beats lance, and lance beats sword. There are exceptions to the triangles, but it's the rule of thumb to follow throughout the game.

Also, the Fire Emblem death system is back. That's right; if a character dies in battle, he is gone for good unless you restart the level. The real challenge of Fire Emblem is getting through the game without losing anybody. There are more than enough characters so that if you do lose a few allies, you won't be out of luck. Many Fire Emblem fans argue over whether you should restart levels if you lose somebody. For this particular game, it could go either way. It's been proven that you can play through the entire game as Ike alone, so you have no need for allies. It's really up to you if you want to keep all your characters alive. The overall story proceeds as normal if somebody leaves your party, but extra snippets of story will be missed.

Path of Radiance continues the Fire Emblem tradition with a grandiose storyline with many countries battling it out over the fate of the world. As always, things start off relatively small. You play Ike, the son of the leader of a band of mercenaries in the kingdom of Crimea. A few skirmishes with bandits serve as your training, but things quickly heat up as the kingdom is overrun by its neighbor, Daein. A few events set the story off into its ultimate direction. The mercenaries inadvertently rescue Crimea's Princess, Elincia. And Greil, Ike's father is no longer able to lead, leaving Ike in charge.

Ike brings the mercenaries to Crimea's Western neighbor, a country run by Laguz, or beastmen. This is where Path of Radiance really begins to branch off from previous entries in the series. And it's both a blessing and a curse. Fire Emblem games are very similar to one another so to mix things up, developer Intelligent Systems added beastmen to this installment. As an addition to the story, they work very well. There's a lot of racial tensions between the humans (beorcs) and the laguz. The laguz are of several types: birds, tigers, dragons, etc. They don't all get along but all have suffered at the hands of humans. Because Ike needs the laguz's help in his journeys, this adds some great tension and plot twists to the story.

The way that laguz don't work is in combat. They have a gauge that fills during combat. Until the gauge is full, they are in human form and have no way to attack (not even by using the weapons normal humans use). Once the gauge is full, they turn into their beast forms and become ruthless killing machines. It's an interesting game play experiment, but it doesn't make for the most compelling combat. The laguz aren't as reliable and need to be pushed into and pulled out of combat throughout each battle. Using humans well is more enjoyable even if it makes the game feel much like previous Fire Emblems. Laguz as enemies are interesting, but they show up quite a lot and all too often with an item that lets them stay in beast form throughout combat, which can't be used by one of the most important laguz that you earn as an ally.

The graphical bump going from GBA Fire Emblems to GameCube is noticeable and appreciated. Though Fire Emblem works in low res 2D, it's nice to see what it can be in 3D. None of the graphics are overly stunning, but certain maps stand out as the highlights in the game, like one map where the goal is to cross a heavily defended bridge. There are units on either end, on the bridge and flying through the air. The unit themselves don't look bad at all and make it so that playing without the animated combat sequences on is better than ever (having them on is also now slower than ever). The cut scenes are the best looking part of the game, as was almost always the case in previous generations.

Path of Radiance is a solid game, but certain aspects bring it down throughout the game. Many characters seem to start at arbitrary levels. While I wouldn't want everybody to just start at Ike's level and have everybody be the same, the lack of balance in the characters can make the battles skewed. At the beginning of the game, certain allies are overpowered. Later on, you get recruits that are either incredibly weak or way too strong. There is a bonus experience feature that allows you to level up characters between battles, but it's a cheap and not fulfilling way to keep your party up to snuff. You also find that certain characters are useless, either because they can use hardly any weapons or they are unable to advance in rank, effectively giving them a level cap half as high as the rest of the group.

Though Path of Radiance tries some new things that didn't work well for me, it mostly stays true to the Fire Emblem formula. Combined with deeper characters and more story than in previous Fire Emblem games, Path of Radiance is still a great game. Don't like the laguz like me? Just don't use them. You still get their participation in the story and don't have to keep them leveled up with the rest of the party. Path of Radiance shows what a Fire Emblem game can be like on the GameCube and it's not something that Fire Emblem fans should miss.

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